Arbor's Senior Spanish program is designed to prepare students for the second-year course they would take as ninth graders. The course combines both communicative and grammatical approaches and focuses on study habits and techniques that will be beneficial throughout the students' academic careers.

Sixes are introduced to cognates, which resonate with the etymons studied in Humanities and simultaneously help build both English and Spanish vocabulary. Sixth-grade Spanish involves a good deal of vocabulary building and lays the basic grammatical foundation of the way the language works.

Sevens continue to build on this foundation by furthering their understanding of the structure of the language. Seventh-grade Spanish becomes more communicative as the students build a larger repertoire of vocabulary and grammatical structures.

Eights delve further into the language and work to practice their writing, reading, and conversational abilities. While the majority of graduating eights are very well-prepared for Spanish II as ninth graders, a few highly motivated students work with the teacher and put in extra effort to be able to make the leap into Spanish III.

Senior Community Service is an opportunity for students to get hands-on experiential learning through real-world projects. Aspects of carpentry, construction, landscaping, gardening, plumbing, masonry, and painting are built into many of the projects the students undertake. Though many of the students have been given special assignments (working with other teachers and classes on campus) the majority of students work on a wide variety of tasks on campus.

Community Service also makes an effort to marry itself to the other disciplines. In connection with Design, Science, and Humanities, students will have the opportunity to work on projects like creating outdoor art installations, designing glass mosaics, modeling, testing and constructing a bridge to span Saum Creek, and planning and creating a Northwest specimen garden.

Since the school’s inception, Annie Ross House, a transitional shelter for families, has been at the core of Arbor’s commitment to serving others outside our community.

Other major recipients of Arbor students’ efforts are the Oregon Food Bank and Mercy Corps.